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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22724974">Symphonie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liffis/pseuds/Liffis'>Liffis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Hockey RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Past Regrets, Pining, Regret, Retrospective</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:21:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>903</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22724974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liffis/pseuds/Liffis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>5 regrets Eric has + 1 regret Sasha has</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Semin/Eric Staal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Symphonie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>GUESS WHICH BITCH DISCOVERED ALEXANDER SEMIN CIRCA FIVE YEARS TOO LATE TO HOP ON HIS NHL BAND WAGON? If your guess was: this bitch! - you're of course perfectly right. Will that stop me from shipping him? FUCK no, let's break out all the fics!</p><p>Fuck me sideways, no idea why, but like - I am enamored with Sasha. So, fics. I'm not a polyshipper, so here, Eric Staal it is, then. Idgaf, but I'm also open to suggestions (that are not Ovechkin or Bäckström, that is).</p><p>Also, pining. Moar pining. Because it is a sad thing that Semin's so far away...also I might have to write a gen/fluff fic for him, because fuuuck have y'all seen him at Vityaz? Because I have, their club has an media team providing a+ material of him and LET! THAT! MAN! TAKE! A! NAP! He looks tired. Let him nap. There MUST be a fic for that.<br/>/rambling over. Onwars to heart-tramping hurt!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If he’d known how little time there’d be – would he have done it differently? Probably. Maybe. Eric liked to think he would’ve done it differently; pretty quickly he’d known that Sasha wasn’t one to quickly make friends.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he would’ve invited him to dinner more often. Maybe a clap on Sasha’s shoulders – and Eric would’ve left his hand lingering just a bit too long. Maybe he would’ve sat next to Sasha more, asking him about home, about Washington, anything to bridge the silence.</p><p> </p><p>He would’ve allowed himself to look more. Not obviously, of course, but he wouldn’t have whipped around, keeping his head low, heart thundering in his chest in fear: what if Sasha saw? What if he thought that this was how they were, here, what if he misunderstood?</p><p> </p><p>But in the end Sasha just hadn’t stayed long enough for any of it. Before Eric had known, before he’d realized how numbered exactly their days would be, Sasha was gone.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>In the end, Sasha stayed just long enough that he left Eric’s life a chaos. Before, Eric hadn’t known that – he could like men like that too. It just hadn’t come up, ever, there hadn’t been men <em>like that</em> for him. It’s been women for him, ever since he’d looked at other people like that. Women - and Sasha. The big exception.</p><p> </p><p>Men had never held any interest for Eric – until Sasha. Until Sasha had arrived, and Eric had looked at him and for the first time he had…noticed a man. He’d looked at him and had seen him as who he was: a man, lean lines shaping his body. And Eric’d swallowed, drily, palms sweaty.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>Only after, long after Sasha, did he understand what it was: yearning. Want. But not even sexually – fuck, wanting Sasha only sexually would’ve been easier, probably. It’d been more, though. He’d – he’d wanted more. Stupid things. Things he’d only wanted to do with women before. Things he <em>hadn’t</em> wanted to do with women.</p><p> </p><p>Wrap his arm around Sasha. Be close to him, even without an excuse, just like that. Pressing his thigh against his. Seeing more of his smile, dimples and all, when Sasha’s whole face beamed. Tell him jokes, make him laugh – and Eric isn’t funny, but he would’ve been, just to see more of Sasha being happy.</p><p> </p><p>A million things he wanted, had wanted, but now they didn’t matter anymore.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>There hadn’t been a ‘them’, a relationship – not even an affair. They’d been nothing, really, not even a Maybe. They’d been…well, colleagues? Looking back, Eric would definitely say they’d understood each other well, despite everything. So, colleagues, absolutely. But friends? Possibly. But not good ones, with whom Eric could’ve shared deep, intense secrets or talks or anything. Things like that couldn’t be enforced, that could only grow over time.</p><p> </p><p> It’s only now, with Sasha gone, that Eric – misses him. Fuck, they hadn’t even been that overly close. Colloquial, yes. But not too close yet. Maybe they would’ve been, had Sasha stayed for a longer time, had Eric been braver and more daring to risk it.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>He looked up Sasha sometimes. (A lot.)</p><p> </p><p>Sasha’s doing surprisingly well, as far as Eric could make it out – he spoke no Russian at all, and almost everything regarding Sasha was, nowadays, in Russian. Social media, media interviews, club informations, videos: all in Russian. Navigating that was difficult and English translations were rare.</p><p> </p><p>Somehow, Eric managed. It took much, much longer, but in the end and after a lot of mis-clicks, he usually got what he’s looking for: a video of Sasha, an interview, some social media stuff.</p><p> </p><p>It’s laughably little, and Eric did feel like a stalker, unable to let go of the past.</p><p> </p><p>But then he saw Sasha, his broad shoulders, those curls – and his eyes, thin mouth, and oh, it felt as if the years had never passed at all  - Sasha was still as Eric remembered – and yet as if too much had passed: the years had left their traces on Sasha, too.</p><p> </p><p>And Eric looked and wanted, still, after all that time.</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Sasha has a million regrets, as any man of his age – no one grew older without accumulating forks in the path of their lives; possibilities where they could’ve walked and changed their life completely, yet had chosen not to. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Washington is probably his biggest, without a doubt, and Sanya’s another – he doesn’t regret, exactly. But sometimes, he wonders.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>There are things he genuinely regrets.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>He should’ve loved more men. While he had the opportunity, he should’ve loved them, even despite being afraid. America was so different – but it is legal there, even though not Accepted for a hockey player. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Somehow, it would’ve worked out, he could’ve made it work. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Looking back, he knows that know, and if he could, he’d hug his younger self and promise him to dare. Would tell him: Risk it, dance with them, hug them, kiss them. Return their gazes instead of looking down in shame. Do it. Not all of them will mean it in – this kind of way, but enough might. There are friends. Friends who…might not know explicitly on which way he is, but they would understand anyways, and in a foreign, strange country some things are easy.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Back then, he hadn’t known. Had been terrified. Since then, it has only been a few short years…but how much has changed!</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Now, he can’t.</em>
</p><p>
  
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